New Appointments

Congratulations to Mick Green for his recent appointment as a Heavy Model Inspector. The club now has returned to 2 inspectors after the recent retirement of Merv Cameron. Kevin Hay being the other inspector.

Annual Dinner – October 13

It was back to the Queens Head Inn for the Annual Dinner and from all accounts, the past issues were resolved with only positive feedback heard on the food. It was helped by the complimentary Pizzas and garlic bread for the tables. Not a big turnout but those that were there seemed to enjoy the get-together. Some shots are below.

Members’ News

It is always pleasing to get input from members, especially as my attendance to date at the field has been limited to one day! Peter Daniel is always a regular contributor, which is great but it would be nice to receive some material from the Symmons Plains attendees. Here are a few updates on the “Relbia Rebels” branch –

Doc’s 88″ Sopwith Pup, first reported in the April Hangar Talk, had it’s maiden on August 3 (thanks to Max for the photos).

Peter, inspired by Doc’s Pup, has commenced scratch building a 96″ Bristol m1c. Peter sent this email through.

Hello George,

Wheeled out the Bristol this morning for a few photos. The weather doesn’t look good on Wednesday for a maiden flight so might have to wait till next week. Doc made the roundels for me and they came up pretty well.

Today the Bristol M1c flew for the first time in fairly windy conditions. There were 7 fliers there to witness it. Our photographer was unavailable so I have no pictures “in air” but just those on the ground. I had doubts about the power plant but she was off the ground in 10 metres and only required 1/2 throttle to maintain a scale speed so with 2×5000 mha 6 cell batteries in parallel still had 60 % remaining after a 10.00 min flight

Doc flew the Vickers Gunbus successfully .

Regards

Peter Daniel

Peter then followed up with another email on November 15 and how the hobby is are changing. First scratch built with hand drawn plans, then kits, then ARF and RTF and now? No need to have stacks of balsa with different thicknesses and grades. Simply a 3D printer and a roll of plastic filament and you can build a very accurate model like Peter Armstrong has built and shown in the photo below.

Hello George.

Great day flying. Forecast wind did not eventuate until 12.00 so big scale ww1 models flew really well. The strip is great.

The little Mustang is owned by Peter Armstrong which he made on his 3D printer. You would not believe how well it flies. Absolutely on rails and at a million miles an hour.

Hope things are going o.k.

Best regards

Peter D.

Built from a 3D printer, Peter A’s Mustang.

Peter added the following information –
Most details are here; 3D printed P51 Mustang
I have gone with the ‘tame’ power train
3530 / 1100kv swinging 9×6
2x 3S 1500 in parallel
60A ESC ( for weight and balance primarily)

I run FrSky radio gear and use cell-level voltage sensing with a 3.5v warning. Practically, this leaves the batteries at 50% resting voltage. FrSky also lets us buddy-box easily even with your weird mode 1 thumbs :). So you should be able to include some sort of flight review also… Ignoring the time to get the printer settings right – Approx 100 hours total print time and ~1kg of PLA filament ($30 in plastic). I can go a lot deeper into 3D printing if there is interest, but it is all white noise to those that aren’t. Pete

RFDS Fun Fly Day – November 18

The club again participated in the RFDS day held around the country to raise funds for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. The weather gods were favourable and it was great to see quite a few turn up (22 in total), including our fellow members the “Relbia Rebels”. Which was pretty good considering PFL were running the State Pattern championships on the same day. Geoff put on the usual barbecue and that was well received.

For me it was a welcome return to the field for the first time since the Christmas party last year. Having not flown for so long and wanting to try out my new Frsky radio, the Horus X12s, I was very conservative taking along my Multiplex Easy Star with a new Frsky Rx the G-RX8 (8 channels expandable to 16). What is unique about this Rx from the other Frsky Rx’s is that along with the usual telemetry (Rx voltage) it has a built in variometer. This receiver is designed to be used for the Gliders. FrSky built the variometer sensor into the RX8R receiver, this will give you telemetry data like altitude and vertical speed. The G-RX8 supports the redundancy function as well, this means you can add on another receiver to create a back-up in case one fails. In addition, it supports SBUS and PWM mode, you can switch between the 2 channels very easily. Cost for this Rx $US40 (probably the most expensive Rx they sell (they range from $US12 up). By the way, whilst have I have been using my Frsky Taranis for over 3 years, it was not the same as the Multiplex mc4000 that I used for my gliders. The Horus looked like it fitted the bill. Tray design, Hall sensor gimbals and a very flexible program in OpenTx to run it, cost around $500 compared with $2500 for my MPX radio!

Unfortunately by the time Kerry and I arrived just after lunch commenced, many models had been packed away. Some shots below –

Richard Cooper's stable of models. In the foreground is the Hobbyking "Tundra".

New member Chris Jones is all smiles.

Tim Sydes (or his legs anyway) with a couple of rubber powered models.

Tim's RC Bucker Jungmeister

A few of those not packed away.

Peter Daniel's "Rascal"

Mike Linton, Andrew de Water and Rodney Kreutzer having a yarn.

Richard Cooper & his Hobbyking "Tundra"

State Pattern Championships – November 18

As mentioned, PFL had the State Pattern event on the same day. Congratulations to Kevin Hay for 1st place in Advanced and Terry Pearson for third in the same class. Photos courtesy of Will Deal.

November 30 – Drone Footage of our site

Russel Walker sent in a couple of interesting photos taken with his drone. Thanks Russell!

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The Internet takes down another icon.

You all hear about how the internet has had an adverse effect on retail bricks and mortar stores but another area has also suffered. We used to rely on our monthly magazine for tips and tricks, the latest adverts etc. However, there is so much information about our hobby readily available on the web, that yet another icon has collapsed. This time Traplet Publications in the UK who went into liquidation in July. For those that don’t know them, they have been around for decades. In various forms, Quiet & Electric Flight, RC Model World to name a couple. I sent my subscription renewal off in July for a 2 year sub ($A240). Fortunately for me, they went into receivership before they processed my credit card!

Don’t forget to register for the Christmas Lunch to be held on December 9!